to be generous and cease speaking in parables. For instance, what think
you has been the object and use of this ruin, when it was in good
condition?"

"In order to judge of that," returned the stranger in green, "it may be
necessary to examine it more closely. Let us ascend."

As he spoke, the barrister mounted, by a crazy ladder, to the floor which
lay just above the crown of the arches, through which he passed by an open
trapdoor His companion hesitated to follow; but, observing that the other
expected him at the summit of the ladder, and that he very kindly pointed
out a defective round, he sprang forward, and went up the ascent with the
agility and steadiness peculiar to his calling.

"Here we are!" exclaimed the stranger in green, looking about at the naked
walls, which were formed of such small and irregular stones as to give the
building the appearance of dangerous frailty, "with good oaken plank for
our deck, as you would say, and the sky for our roof, as we call the upper
part of a house at the universities. Now let us speak of things on the
lower world. A--a--; I forget what you said was your usual appellation--"

"That might depend on circumstances. I have been known by different names
in different situations However, if you call me Wilder, I shall not fail
to answer."

"Wilder!" a good name; though, I dare say, it would have been as true were
it Wildone. You young ship-boys have the character of being a little
erratic in your humours at times. How many tender hearts have you left to
sigh for your errors, amid shady bowers, while you have been
ploughing--that is the word, I believe--ploughing the salt-sea ocean?"